Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Five Years and Forty-Five Minutes

I. Apology

I want to apologize to everyone who came to see me read and wound up waiting forty-five Chicago minutes for me to get there. When I got a message that the program was running thirty to forty-five minutes late I decided to stay where I was and keep revising. What I didn't realize was that the performance before mine was in an entirely different room. That meant I could have shown up on time and began on time.
If I'd been waiting for a reading that long I'd have been the ringleader of the murmurers, so please, if you read this, be a friend and pass my apology on to anyone I may have bored, bothered, offended or outraged.

II. Thank You

One lady in the audience produced a remarkably concise and precisely timed heckle just as I began to speak. I started to say, "It's been five years since I've done a reading...". As I took a momentary pause after the word "years" (I'm such an oratorical weakling, I needed to rest after the first four words) she launched her devastating three word equalizer: "...and forty-five minutes!!"
Really. It was positively laser-like, the way she was able to insert it between my blobs of prattle. Besides my admiration I'd also like to give her thanks for helping me come up with a title for the piece I read, now and forever titled, "Five Years and Forty-Five Minutes".